Volume 67, Issue I

To those who came before us—Dean McHugh, Mikey Kemp, Thomas Merton, Harpo Marx, Fra Lippo Lippi—you have taught us about 12% perfect of what we know, but all in all that same 12% comprises 90% of what we know about publishing Icarus. Thanks for your help, and we hope we haven’t offended you. To the reader of this issue, Tolle; Lege, preferably beneath a fig tree and not a pear tree. We hope that you find this work as demanding as we found it. We believe, anyway, that you stand to gain a lot from it, as we feel we have. It would be disingenuous to call this production a labour of love; we loved the labour of it, yes, but this love was at most a reflection of what you see, here, now, printed in these pages. To those of you whose names are printed opposite this editorial, we thank you for your love, and greet you at the starts of your brilliant careers. More generally, to all of you who allowed us to read and to discuss your work, we extend our thanks and hope you won’t give up on us quite yet. We owe a great deal to Éabha and Gill, who have brought and continue to bring this magazine forward in ways not always noticed. Hi, Nath. — Leo Dunsker & Will Fleming

Icarus 67.1 (Michelmas 2016) is proud to present work from both Maurice Scully and Christodoulos Makris. The former once found himself in our same shoes (which he wore alone, and which evidently fit him quite well); the latter has taken us on good faith, and for this we thank him especially.

Contents

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Commemorative statues & monuments are public static moments of statement about an event or person or movement. Individual memory is subjective of course, & collective memory gathers up simplifications that serve agendas not controlled or initiated by the majority of those that ‘remember’, yet subjective memory is thought of as the truth, collective memory as a truth.

‘Placed’ began with some writing on the game of tiddly-winks. I was interested in the colours & shapes as well as the rhythms of the game. The colours & shapes led to ‘motley’ & that, in turn, to Yeats’s ‘Easter 1916’. 1916 in this year of centenary, led me to think about the complexity of commemoration. Those I think were the links that made the piece.

Goldsmith outside Trinity College holding open a book is looking sprightly & studious, an image that does not fit contemporary accounts. Daniel O’Connell, lawyer & politician, atop his monument in the street renamed in his honour, providing vantage to seagulls, head streaked white, is surrounded by lady angels with full breasts & bulletholes. Jim Larkin, nearby, arms aloft on his high plinth of Wicklow granite, just across from where he spoke in 1913 from an upper window to the workers on the street below in what was then a hotel owned by William Martin Murphy, of all people (Larkin had dressed as a woman to slip in to the building) is frozen in drama. But Oisin Kelly’s lively statue refers to a different drama, in a different theatre.

So, history. A series of contingent accidents beyond prediction? A chaos of tantalizing patterns? An unending nightmare? The Burgess Shale decimation, mass extinctions through meteorite hits & other natural disasters, the rise of small mammals towards consciousness, what we mammals call ‘intelligence’, a shooting gallery beyond rules?

A dog barks in the city:

roofroof-roofroof-roof-roof

I imagined Patrick Kavanagh’s self-commemorating canal sonnet (‘Oh commemorate me where there is water ... ‘) as itself, as a physical structure, spread over rippled water to break up into latinate & seeming latinate segments which gave stanzas 17 – 19 of ‘Placed’.

These three pieces – ‘Placed’, ‘Pattern’, & ‘Particles’ – are from ‘Play Book’, a work in progress. I think this book might be ‘about’ power. But I don’t know yet.

A version of ‘Pattern’ has appeared in a small festschrift for Susan Howe & ‘Placed’ has appeared in the e-chapbook Plays from Smithereens Press. Thanks to the editors Jonathan Creasy & Ken Keating.

That writer on that plinthmight one day lift that page& laugh, what do you think?Downwind of Lesson One.Flickering text. Birdshit on a shoulder.Sunglints on glass. (But I doubt it).(But that’s not the point).Call me when you get back ...

& turn down the radiolook round, listen,are you awake?Do you need to be?(Isn’t this great?)Plastic gutteringclicking in directsunlight darkensinto quiet changesagain to glow & snapgetting the work donetrees’ leaves reflectedon the windowagainst a fine clear skygetting the work done wellinvisible packetsof energy puckeringcurled surfacesthat complicate theIf-This Then-ThatParticlesrisk by riskI flick a fly awayspreadingopening(this is the life!)vertical pelletsincessantly settlinground you into the mudgoing right on commemoratingbattles & heroes & all that(when you don’t know the language –little wisps of it drifting along the tongue –stand back – watch the action)then that metal statue winks a lid& its lips move –hey kid.

The first time I choked, my mom had to perform the Heimlich Maneuver on me and pull the mozzarella stick out of my throat with her bare fingers. The first time I had an onion ring was at the Wellesley Center, which is actually just the Babson College pool but I didn’t know that until August. The first time we read Holes must have been in July because we were on the Vineyard and Henry found onions growing in the garden of the house we rent from Jim and Kathy Newman. The first time I got my period away from home was on the 6th grade retreat and I was caught so tenderly off-guard that I went home early but I don’t even remember if I read Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret before or after that. The first time Ella told me she’d gotten pregnant she added that it was ‘all gone’; she’d had a ‘shmuhshmorshun’; she didn’t plan on telling Ari about it. The first time I sat on the threadbare couch in Ari’s putrid frat-house bedroom, we sang Weezer songs for half an hour until he put his hand on my leg. The first time we went to Seattle I threw up on the couch in the Hotel Monaco lobby, on the realtor, and on the principal of the elementary school we were visiting. The first time I drank enough to stop seeing or speaking or knowing anything I threw up on my bed in a house that the realtor hadn’t even shown us when we visited ten years earlier. The first time I drank coffee it was indisputably a small iced with cream from the Dunkin’ Donuts in Coolidge Corner, on the same day that Natalie and I stood in a Kabloom flower shop for ten minutes because they had the best air conditioning. The first time I saw Natalie after we moved she only talked about other people and how terrible of a singer her boyfriend, Tyrone, was. The first time I tried to do laundry after I moved in to college I hyperventilated in the street because I was sweating and I had forgotten to buy detergent. The first time I had sex I put a blanket down but the next time I didn’t and I washed my quilt but the stains wouldn’t come out so I flipped it over when my parents visited the weekend after. The first time I realized my parents were other people’s children was actually two times; first with my mom in August 2014 and then with my dad in February 2016. The first time I saw Anika act was in an August Wilson monologue competition and it was the most serious I’ve ever seen her. The first time I competed in a story slam I won. The last time I told the story about you and me I only told the bad parts.

Incarnation cosily nestled in old lodging,Where golden sunset cast uponPendulum still dully oscillating,Declining the yoking,To rusty plough foregoneIn a trance I found myself twirling,Frivolous as a witch,crushing the oblivious longing, shattering,Shaking with cackling!Surely I was born,proficient in forgettingAnd by forgetfulness the present reborn

‘Can I get that without the onion?’ he asked. ‘Sure thing,’ she said, ‘and what can I get for you?’ ‘Oh, nothing for me please,’ Barb said, ‘I’ll just take tea with lemon.’ ‘Okay, I’ll be back with your tea,’ said the waitress. Barb had grey hair and was twenty-seven years old. Her back was arched and face wrinkled; she always claimed the senior discount. Mike was 19 and often assumed to be Barb’s grandson. In reality, they were lovers. Barb had the same name as her grandmother, Barbra Gwendolyn Byard, and was able to collect her deceased grandmother’s social security checks because of a filing mishap. Mike worked at the county’s road commission as a mechanic. They would come to this diner every Sunday morning and have breakfast. ‘Barb,’ said Mike as he stood up, ‘will you marry me?’ ‘No, now sit down.’ Mike sat as the waitress waddled over with a cup of tea and a bowl of lemons. Mike was crying. ‘Oh, honey,’ the waitress said, ‘is there anything I can help you with?’ ‘He’s fine,’ said Barb ‘could I get more lemons?’ ‘No, I’m sorry, we just ran out,’ said the waitress. Barb stood up sharply and struck the waitress across the face. The waitress picked up the tea and threw it at Barb’s chest causing her breasts to swell. Mike, still crying, rushed to his feet and stood between the two women. The waitress turned and headed towards the kitchen. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. He went to embrace her, but her chest had swollen too much and he couldn’t reach around her. When they sat back down into their booth, her breasts expanded to cover most of the table; her blouse likewise grew. It was light blue with an intricate white flower pattern. The table creaked as the weight increased. Within seconds of sitting down, her breasts had expanded all the way across the table and began suffocating Mike. He was still crying; his tears increased her breasts’ rate of expansion. Barb tried standing, to allow her lover breath, but she was wedged, so much so that her back was forced into the booth crushing her lungs. After a minute, both Mike and Barb had stopped moving, dead. The table shattered.

Once there was a man who wrote a song so powerful it came to life and moved into his house. He was proud of its success: it won awards and earned money which it shared with him. However, unfortunately it was very promiscuous and kept bringing home women. He would meet them in the kitchen in the morning, looking dazed and eating his cornflakes. He worried that his song was better in bed than he was, and also he felt grumpy at constantly running out of cornflakes. To make matters worse, the song resembled him physically and they were often confused with each other. The world was suddenly full of people convinced he had had deep, tender conversations with them. He took to hugging absolutely everyone he met in order not to risk offence. He could only wonder how the song coped when his own friends assumed it could talk to them about Monty Python or graphic novels.

One day, on a third successive morning of breakfasting on the gritty bits from the bottom of Kelloggs packets, something inside him snapped. He was starting to find his song’s company annoying in any case; though intelligent and cultured by the standards of a song, its range of interests was inevitably limited. “This must stop!” he exclaimed aloud, jerking the lady sitting opposite from her happy reverie. He leapt (still in his dressing gown) into his car, drove to the house of a fellow-musician, and pleaded with him to arrange the kind of cover version that would replace the original and take the song off his hands. “I’m sorry,” said his friend, with pity in his eyes. “Even if I were capable of it, it’s far too soon for that to be possible. Your song is too young and strong and - you must face facts - it gets around.” He nodded sadly. It did. “What can I do?” “Well, when absolutely everyone who might hear it is sick of it, it will naturally die.” “It mostly meets people on the internet. How many internet users are there?” “About three-and-a-half billion.” “Oh.” “Another possibility is to create another song to be its faithful partner, and then there would be fewer people trying to share the cereal.” “That’s not how it works for that song, I’m afraid.” “Sorry I couldn’t be more help. And thanks for the hot, passionate remix I had with your song on Wednesday.”

The songwriter drove home feeling even gloomier than when he’d set out. He knew it was no good trying to expostulate with the song itself; he’d tried that before and the song had sympathetically taken his hand and assured him it felt his pain. And of course it did feel his pain - it knew his lingering insecurities, past rejections, and continuing need for love - but it totally failed to understand how much he wanted, just occasionally, the privacy to hang around in his underpants playing Street Fighter 2. He had to accept that it wasn’t going to leave, die, or become any less amorous any time soon. If one of the two of them was to move on, it would have to be him.

He began to spend long periods of time away from home. Increasingly he allowed the song to stand in for him in interviews and on social media. The song had romantically long, tousled hair, so he cut his short. At first, as he travelled around looking for ideas, the song kept popping up to join him, distracting him from the newer music he was trying to make, but this happened less and less as time went on. It never became safe to stop hugging everyone. From afar, he followed his song’s progress. As time passed, to his surprise and amusement, it began to take on a public role. It was regarded as a national treasure and a source of common pride, and sent to foreign countries as a representative. It was consulted for its perspective on marital harmony, gender stereotypes, and even grammar. It travelled more widely than he did. He was happy that it seemed to be doing some good, and happier that he could leave it to get on with it. However, he was not permitted to remain thus detached. One day he got a rather serious phone-call. It was an important person from the diplomatic service, urgently requiring his presence. His song had caused what could escalate into an international incident: at a trade summit of great delicacy, it had been accused by the Americans of radicalism, by the Chinese of reactionism, and by the Russian Prime Minister of seducing his wife. The songwriter was hurriedly flown to the venue (in Cairo) and told he was to attend a banquet at which he would mend all the terrible damage done by his song. As he waited outside the vast, becrystalled banqueting hall, straightening his bow tie, an attaché rapidly briefed him. “Don’t mention renewable energy, feminism, religion, the public sector, copyright law, healthcare, national sovereignty, any country you’ve been to that’s notably capitalist or communist, coral bleaching, or the role of the arts. And try not to look attractive.” Taking a deep breath, the songwriter did his absolute best. Trying to be as charming and yet unsexy as possible, he talked for ninety minutes about technical specifications of microphones. Everyone was delighted with him and world peace ensued.

After this the songwriter flew home. He was exhausted from his ordeal, but he realised that he needed to take control, once for all, of his song. It was many months since he had seen his house, and he found it amazingly full of people. Not only were there a very large number of women, some of whom looked vaguely familiar, there were also quite a lot of men, all with a noticeable family resemblance to each other. He realised that these were more of his songs, brought to life by the power of enthusiasm directed at them - romantic songs, but also funny songs, odd songs, long songs, loud songs, complicated songs, and songs about the difficulties of songwriting. Around their feet assorted infants crawled, played, or merely whined irritatingly - all the little works of fan art, of extremely variable merit, born of his music. And at the centre was the song that had started it all, looking handsome, sad, guilty, wanting his forgiveness and his love. How could he not love it? It was, after all, only a song. Nonetheless he walked over and punched it on the nose.

I would like to say that after this the songwriter lived happily ever after in the midst of this free-loving musical commune. However, he wanted to work on new material and it was all a bit much. So he got in a manager to keep his songs in line. And then he changed his name, had plastic surgery, and moved to Thailand.

Love to stand between the carriagesOne foot in front one behindNot held ladysherseq\chuhs-usingle groundIt sends kisses you bite back One foot in front one behindNot holding anything now but gauging the grou It sends kisses184 his shill between the car

Hana Efendic is 17, has an obsession with taking sky pics, and is currently in first year at Trinity. She is half Irish/ half Bosnian and goes back to Sarajevo every summer, crying with delight! She loves it so much! She’s written a YA novel called Nia and is a member of the Virginia House Writers in Dublin.

Madee Ehrenberg is a visiting student from Columbia University. She is still working on the dd/mm/yyyy format for writing the date. Her favorite things are running, reading books, and employing tricolon crescendo. She takes her coffee black and does her own laundry. Please enjoy the words that she wrote down.

Daniel Hojnacki, 20, is a third-year visiting student from Toledo, Ohio. Back in the states, he attends Kenyon College, where he studies English, creative writing, and the Russian language. He currently resides in Rathmines, where he continues his hobbies of prize-fighting, mountain-climbing, faith-healing, spirit-summoning, and self-mythologizing.

Alice Jorgensen lectures on Old and Middle English literature in the School of English, TCD. She has recently begun to write short fiction, some of it serious, some of it less serious. She is frequently inspired by music.

Speranza Orlando is the nom de plume of Xun Liu, a PhD candidate based in the Trinity Asian Studies Centre researching on 14th-18th century Chinese Classical Literature and cultural/historical linguistics. Completing an MPhil course in comparative literature in Trinity College has endowed Xun with wide literary and cultural interests. Xun is also interested in photography and fine arts.

Christodoulos Makris is “one of Ireland’s leading contemporary explorers of experimental poetics” (RTÉ Poetry Programme). His most recent book The Architecture of Chance (Wurm Press, 2015) was chosen as a poetry book of the year by RTÉ Arena and 3:AM Magazine. He is co-curator of Dublin’s multidisciplinary series of events Phonica, and the poetry editor of gorse.

Eva O’ Brien is a Junior Sophister student. She studies Maths and English Literature and dreams of being a farmer who writes and makes art in her spare time. She is a regular contributor to Trinity News.

Joshua R. Rhinier is a current third-year at Johns Hopkins University in the English and Political Science departments, studying for a term at Trinity. When not in Baltimore, Maryland for college, he lives in a very rural part of northern Michigan where he does work as a mechanic.

Ex-editor of Icarus (mid-70’s) Maurice Scully was born in Dublin in 1952, studied Irish & English at Trinity, editor The Beau magazine, Beau Press & Beau Events early 80’s, Coelacanth Press & Coelacanth Reading Series mid-80’s (with emphasis on UK avant-garde writers), he has published over a dozen books, mainly with innovative presses like Wild Honey, Galloping Dog, Reality Street, Etruscan Books & Shearsman. A CD, Mouthpuller, appeared with Randolph Healy in 2000. An e-chapbook from Smithereens Press has just appeared.

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